5 replies to this topic

[thil43]

Hello, I have version A installed on a machine. I then build version B in InstallShield (11 - premier, Basic MSI). When I install version B, without removing versionA, I was expecting to see only 1 entry in Add/Remove Programs (ARP), instead I see 2 entries. Also, some of the files' dates have changed, and I still see the older dated version of these files after installing version B.

I am changing the Product Code and Product Version in Product Properties. I thought this is what was needed for version B installation to remove older files, then add in the newer files.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, Tim

[Stefan Krueger]

You also need to add an entry under Upgrades > Major Upgrade.
MSI doesn't update files based on date, only based on version. Are these versionless files?

[thil43]

That is also part of my problem, I have been trying to determine exactly what a versioned file means to IS. I'm not sure what makes a file a versioned file.

Thanks, Tim

[Stefan Krueger]

It must be a P file (EXE, DLL, OCX etc.) with an embedded version resource.

[thil43]

Thanks again for the response Stefan.

I did discover that most of the P files you mention, in our case mostly .dll's and .exe's had a version in the files properties view. I the past however, I checked, and the version would always be blank.

After discussing with Macrovision (or ow Accreso), their suggestion was to edit the files in question to have "Always Overwrite" selected. I first cleared out the version, then selected the Always Overwrite check box.

This does work as advertised, but do you know of any precautions to doing this?

Thanks, Tim

[Stefan Krueger]

"P" should have been "PE", sorry for the typo.

"always overwrite" will do exactly that. This means it might downgrade a newer file to an older version. It may also trigger auto-repair because there is no real "always overwrite" functionality in MSI. InstallShield uses a trick to do this: in the File table it specifies a very high version number for that file. So the file in your msi will always be a higher version than the file on the target. Even when Windows Installer performs an integrity check of the application files.